On Friday morning, my sweetheart and I got a phone message from our JB Branch President.  He received a call from a Stake President in the Philippines, asking if someone could go and give a blessing to this dear sister in Buta Patah, which is in out branch area, about 2 hours north of us.  We found out that this Sister Amelyn and her mother, visiting her family from the Philippines, were in a car accident and the mother was killed.  They were bumped off the road and rolled over a cliff into a ravine.  Sister Amelyn broke 6 ribs and her mother died after her own ribs broke and punctured her heart and lungs. We left at 1 PM on Saturday, after searching for many hours in Singapore for burial clothing for an endowed member to dress her deceased mother.  Linda was going up to dress the body before they shipped it back to the Philippines for the funeral.  The drive was very long and we were very blessed to be safe in travel.  We gave Sister Amelyn a blessing.  After the blessing, she got out of bed and began walking around.  What great faith!

 This is the grandson, who just lost his grandmother in the car accident.  His name is Alyzon.  What a wonderful young man.  He is married with a little baby daughter, whose name is Susquehanna (like the river in Pa.), named after that place in the Doc. & Covenants.  All our phone conversations with the family were through Alyzon.  After a busy day of blessings for both sisters, visiting the morgue and waiting for the body and finding an ATM to give the family sufficient funds to get the body back to the Philippines, we were asked to take Alyzon back with us to JB.  He sleeps on a mat, above the restaurant where he works, to earn enough money to bring his little family over to Malaysia.  Alyzon is a return missionary and was such a great help all day.  He stayed at our apartment for the night and we took him to our church meetings on Sunday.  He had nothing but the clothes on his back, so we gave him some of my clothes while we washed his. 

 The morgue would not release the body until next Tuesday, so we got all the temple clothing and placed it in the pouch to lay along side the mother in her casket.  The one daughter will dress her in her white dress and the Stake members, back in the Philippines can complete dressing her in her temple clothing later.  When we finally got back into JB around 7:30 PM, we hurried over to a birthday party for our dear friend, Brother Gema.  He was turning 52 and everyone in the area comes to his home to celebrate.  You can see in this picture, that everyone lines the walls of the small home, with the food and drink at one end where Brother Gema is getting his food.  We had about 30 to 40 people there, some sitting inside the very hot room and others sitting outside where the mosquitos get you.

 This is Brother Gema and his wife, Sister Eta.  This great man will eventually be a wonderful leader here in Malaysia.  He was recently released as the 2nd Counselor in the JB Branch and will soon attend the Masai Branch, so he can speak "bahasa" with all the other members there.  Brother Gema will be a member of the church for one year this coming September.  He faithfully teaches Sunday School every week and had recently gone through some tough times with his family.  He was hit by a motorcycle and, at during the same week, his daughter had her baby C-section.  As the patriarch of his family, he takes the responsibility to help pay for the hospital bills and any other associated expenses.
We go over to his home each Sunday evening, to teach one of Sister Eta's nephews, with the missionaries.  Brother Gema bears a very strong testimony each time we meet.

 This final picture, for this week, is another amazing food that we had at Brother Gema's birthday party.  Once you get past the thought of what you're eating, it didn't taste that bad.  It is actually "chicken head".  You eat all the parts of the head, except the beak.  Elder Sheranian and I were both betting each other to take one of these "bad boys" and bite into it.  I won the dare and took the first bite.  Eating around the two eyeballs, while they are still looking at you, is a bit weird.  The neck and head have many tiny bones and we laughed so hard when Elder Sheranian thought that part of the beak got stuck in his teeth and he couldn't get it out.  I wasn't brave enough to even touch the beak.  All the other members at the party were enjoying their chicken heads, with noodles, rice and corn drink.  The corn drink was a cold, yellow drink, that tasted exactly like drinking the juice out of a can of corn.  I still haven't tried too many fish products here, since I'm not a real fan of fish.  I love their prawns, similar to shrimp but a lot larger.  I still have plenty of time to try all the great foods here in Malaysia.
This afternoon, we held our first Auxiliary Training.  My counselor in the District Presidency, President Hong Min Tan, taught about teaching the members in their classes.  We had sisters from the Relief Society, the Young Women and the Primary.  After Pres. Tan, I spoke on ministering.  Our District Theme, which I copied off in English and amazingly in "bahasa", is: "One on One, One by One, Line Upon Line, Here a Little and There a Little".  In bahasa it reads, "Satu pada Satu, Satu demi Satu, Baris demi Baris, Ajaran demi Ajaran, Di Sini Sedekit, dan Di Sana Sedekit."  After I spoke, we broke off into the three auxiliaries and the District R.S. Presidency (which includes Linda) taught the leaders of the Relief Society, Pres. Tan taught the Young Women and I taught the Primary people.  I had one sweet sister, just called this morning, as the new Primary President.  We spent the next 30 minutes going through the general handbook and finding out about sharing time, music and classroom manuals.
Finally, we met back together to have a piece of cake that Linda made.  We left the cake, with delicious icing on top, sit out through the training, and thus, in this warm humidity, the icing ran off the cake and settled on the sides of the pan.  They loved it anyway.  We ended our Sabbath by spending the next few hours, taking Alyzon back to his little mat to sleep on, somewhere in west Johor Bahru.  He really didn't know how to get there and we couldn't get any help through the GPS unit without an address.  A somewhat frustrating end to another great week.  I have now ordered 2 sets of burial clothing, to keep in my district office, just in case we may need them again.  We learned much this weekend, traveled much, and had a great outpouring of the Spirit to help us in our callings. 

Gawai Celebration

 Here is our final Gawai party for the month of June.  Gawai runs through the entire month and President John of the Masai Branch decided to have one last "bash" near the end of the month.
The sign, on the wall, is written in Iban.  The Iban people are the original people of East Malaysia.  Their language is different from "bahasa".  This saying is, "Happy Gawai Day", 2013, Long Life and Peace"

 Here we are, trying to hug the wall and stay out of the way.  Everyone is asked to dance and participate in the Gawai Celebration.  It's only a matter of time before someone comes over to you and asks you to get up and make a fool of yourself.  I'm quite good at that.

 The Gawai party begins at 5 PM, with a banana tree put up in the middle of the chapel.  You can see it strung up to the lights, with lots of bags of "goodies and treats" hanging all over the tree.
This is Elder Meister, who began the opening ceremony of the banana tree.

 Someone is chosen to go up to the tree, with a machette in hand, and cut down one of the treats and place the treat in a blue bin, next to the tree.
Of course, I was asked to go up first.  I didn't know what I was suppose to do, so I danced around the tree and cut off a bag of peanuts and took the bag back to my seat.  What a mistake.  You were suppose to drop the treat in the bin, which no one told me.  We quickly fixed that and I handed my machette off to this sister next, so she could do things correctly.

 There is all kinds of beautiful dancing, with traditional Gawai costumes on.  This is some of our Young Women, doing one of the dances.  They have gorgeous, metal headdresses on and very colorful shoulder wraps and skirts, with many metal tinkling ornaments.  Really something to see.

 After the dancing by the Young Women, the 4 Masai Elders got up and sang a song they created.  Elder Tan is brand new on the left, then Elder Meister, who goes home in 73 days, then our District Leader, Elder Chan (whose father was just called as an Area 70) and finally, on the right, is Elder Gaultier. 

 Following the Elders, all the Young Women got up to sing and perform.  Each group is asked to do something for the Gawai Party.  We began the festivities at 5 PM, then do all this dancing and performing until about 8 PM and then we all went upstairs to the Relief Society room and ate a catered meal.  Great food and lots of fun.

 The final part of the Gawai celebration is to cut down the banana tree for another year.  Elder Meister begins by dancing around the tree and cutting off one banana leaf at a time.

 As he is cutting off the banana leaves, the Young Women dance around the banana tree in their traditional dress and traditional Gawai music.  The room is very quiet and everyone focuses on the tree and the young ladies dancing around.

 Elder Meister is getting down to only 2 banana leaves left on the tree.  The children get more and more excited, since they get the treats in the blue bin, after the tree is finally cut down and taken out of the room.

 Here, he is down to just one more leaf and you can see the blue bin full of bags of popcorn, bags of peanuts and other treats from the store.  Many of our Saints in Masai, are Iban, and this Gawai party is very special to them each year.  Everything is done just as it would be performed in East Malaysia.  Over there, they have "long houses" and hundreds of people participate in this traditional tree cutting ceremony.

 The leaves are all gone and now Elder Meister must cut off the tree trunk in the middle, as the Young Women circle the banana tree one more time.  You can see how beautiful the dresses are.  I was amazed how the girls keep the heavy metal head pieces up and connected so well to their hair and heads.  Many sisters, in our branch, have these shoulder wraps, that are hand made.

 Finally, the tree is cut at the base and all the branches and leaves are removed from the center of the chapel.  Then the kids go crazy grabbing for all the treats.  Following that, each group of people, sitting around the edges, gets up to dance.  Their traditional Gawai dance is similar to our "line dancing". 

 Here, the elders and all the men were asked to get up.  They only wanted the Young Men and all the Elders in the room.  I was the only High Priest, so I got out of this one.  I realized that I'm the only High Priest in all of Johor Bahru, a population of 1.8 million people.  Awesome!  Linda danced very well, and, of course, I was forced to get up and dance in front of everyone.  I was somewhat clumsy, but they love you anyway.

 After our Gawai party, we were given 2 different kinds of fruit that we haven't tasted before.  This one is already peeled and called, "longan".  It is a white see through fruit, the size of a large grape, with a black pit inside.  It tasted similar to a white grape.  It comes with a brown shell around it that you have to peel off.

 We ate some of these fruits and then Brother Gema gave us another one.  We didn't get the name of this one, but it is a bit larger than the "longan", looking like a small potato.  It also needed to be peeled off and inside was a white fruit with segments, similar to a very small orange.  This fruit I liked better than the "longan", tasting very close to grapefruit.

Here is a bowl of both fruits.  The "longan" is the fruit connected together with rubberbands, on the right side of the blue bowl.  The other grapefruit type fruit is the larger balls on the left of the bowl.  These are fruits eaten for Gawai and come from East Malaysia.  A few days ago, we ate at a members home and were given some dark, black eggs.  We asked what they were and were told they were duck eggs.  We asked how they made them black, and we were told, "Don't ask!"  After that, I didn't take anymore duck eggs.

 Linda and I organized a Young Men / Young Women Activity, playing "Minute to Win It".  We had a lot of fun.  We held the activity at Brother Jimmy and Sister Minang's home. 
In this first game, Helena and Leonard had to stack 6 dice on a popsicle stick. 

 We got 3 new elders in our area.  This is Elder Meister from Australia and Elder Gaultier from Logan, Utah.  They had to bounce 3 ping pong balls on the floor and land them in the bowl on their heads.  They were pitiful.

 We had these two girls unwrap an entire roll of toilet paper spinning around and looking like mummies.  The one young lady in the yellow fell over.  She was so dizzy. 

 The big favorite was for everyone to participate in moving their Oreo cookie down from their forehead to their mouth, only using their face to move the cookie.  The sad part was it is so hot and humid in Malaysia, that the cookies stuck fast and didn't move so easily.  We eventually had a winner.

 Stanly had to keep 3 balloons up in the air for one minute.  He was really good at it.  The only drawback was to do this activity, we had to turn off the ceiling fan and it was even more hot and humid than before.  Right after he won, we all ran to turn the fan back on.
In the white long sleeved shirt is Presley.  He is a wonderful 20 year old kid who will be a member for 1 year in September.  He wants to go on a mission right away.  He is currently the Young Men's President and is one amazing young man.

 Two of the kids had to stack 5 apples on top of each other.  We were sure it would be impossible to do in one minute, but one of them made it and gave another point to their team.

 Here is Elder Meister again, sucking up
M & M's with a straw and moving ten of them from one plate to another.  He beat his opponent by just one M & M.  Whichever team won the most points, they were the team who was able to eat first.  But, of course, tradition over road that as they always serve the senior couple first and then the elders.  Until each of us begins eating, no one else eats and everyone watches to see if we like the food.

 These 2 little guys are not in the Young Men or Young Women, but we allowed them to play this game.  Everyone cheered them on.  They had a hard spaghetti in their mouth and had to get 6 "penne" noodles on their spaghetti.  The little guy in red, wearing one of the elders name badge, won.  He was so proud.

Helena had to keep a green feather up in the air for one minute.  Again, no ceiling fan and lots of hot air with 12 kids, 4 elders, 3 other adults who cooked the food and both of us in this small living room.  This is the average size of the homes in Malaysia.  Pepto Bismol pink is a very popular color.  Off from this living room, to the right, is a small bedroom, kitchen, and bathroom.  That is the entire house.  Sitting on the sofa is the other new elder, Elder Tan.  He is from Malaysia and speaks Chinese.  We sure can use him in our JB Branch with the Chinese members.

 We have these fun little "gecko" lizards everywhere.  Sometimes they get into the homes.  I was kneeling, saying my prayers the other night, and felt something crawl over my leg.  I jumped into the bed and just about knocked Linda out the other side, screaming like a girl.  We chased the lizard out the front door and as I used the broom to get him out, I broke off his tail.  The tailed flailed all around as the body ran off.  I'm sure, he is going to get all his relatives and come back tomorrow night to get me.

 For P-day this week, we decided to go bowling.  The mission rule here in Malaysia, is everyone wears mission clothes when in public, even on our P-day.  You can wear shorts when working in your apartment or if you are out and doing a service project in someone's yard.  Here is Linda, bowling her little heart out.  She was really good

 This is Elder Smith, from American Fork.  This was our last P-day together, before mission tranfers this coming Thursday.  We found out that we will lose Elder Steven and Elder Smith.  We will then have Elder Chan become our District Leader and a new set of missionaries will come back to the Masai area. 

 I bowled a fairly good game, but after about three bowling throws, I got a "charlie horse" way up in my butt muscle on the left side.  It hurt for days.  I still beat all the other missionaries with my "butt handicap".  We had lots of fun bowling and it only cost 10 RM for 2 games, which comes to $1.50 per game.

 This is our famous Elder Steven.  We call him our "chocolate baby".  He is a Malaysian, but his ancestors are from India.  The picture shows that he didn't do the best job bowling.  He served as our District Leader and will now be transferred over to East Malaysia and assigned to Kuching.
He is really excited about the area he is going to but discouraged to have to train another brand new missionary.

Here we are, standing outside in the hot sun in front of the bowling alley.  Just a few days after we took these pictures, the country of Indonesia began burning their forests to clear some land.  It apparently got out of control and the smoke has caused a lot of trouble here in Malaysia and in Singapore.  The normal PSI reading for particulates in the air is suppose to be below 90.
Our number was at 401, which means we have to wear masks if you go outside.  We are now in our summer season, with normal temperatures in the high 90's.  When it is not summer, our regular temperatures are about 85 degrees, so it is not that much difference. 

 On Saturday, June 8th, we continued with our Gawai celebrations at Brother Uki's home.  Brother Uki (in blue) is the patriarch of this family, with 21 people living in one small home. 
We had so much food and "seronok" (fun). There is five families that are all related to Brother Uki that live in this home.  Super humble, wonderful people.

 With almost every Gawai party, you have to get up and do the traditional dances from East Malaysia.  Here is Linda dancing.  We played a guessing game from the Book of Mormon and if you couldn't come up with the answer by the time we counted to ten in bahasa, then you had to get up and dance.  Everytime a sister lost, they would go over to Linda and ask her to dance with them.  Elder Olivares and I got up and danced together.  Sorry, no pictures.

 I was able to get up on the 23rd floor of the adjacent apartment tower and take pictures of Johor Bahru.  This is a picture of the newest tower being built and you can barely see the green building right behind it, which will be tower number 4.  There are 2 more towers in the works.  Just off to the right side of the picture is the tower Linda and I live in.  We are on the first floor.

 This is the typical "shop lots" that are everywhere in Malaysia.  They are usually 2 or 3 stories high.  The store is located on the first floor and people live on the 2nd and 3rd floor.
These shop lots are quite nice, but most of them are quite dirty, with garbage thrown right outside the front doors and lots of dogs running all around.  The red roofs, on the bottom of the picture, are homes in a very nice area of town.

 This picture is from the 23rd floor, as I zoomed in to show how the driving is on the left.  It has taken me a few days to get adjusted to it, but now, it comes quite naturally.  You sit in the right hand side of the car, but drive on the left side of the road.  All exits on freeways are on the left side and there is no way to take a right hand turn.  You can only continue on the freeways and get into the "u-turn" lane and go back to your destination. 
                                                
This white set of "shop lots" is where the LDS church is located.  You can't see it from here, but it is just one block away from our tower apt.                            

We went out today, after getting the elders bike repaired, and ate at an Indian restaurant.  They serve the food on a large green live leaf.  Linda and I got the vegetarian plate.  You get a large pile of seasoned rice, then pick three different vegetables.  They throw in some curry and a crisp piece of bread, like a large potato chip.  It was very good food.  Both of our large plates of food cost $4 together.  We hardly ever cook at home, because it so much cheaper to go out to eat.


We have seen a great deal of opposition from Satan with the local leaders and members.  We visited a sweet family last night and gave the head of the household a blessing.  Last week, he accidentally hit someone on their motorbike.  The person got knocked over and then got up and walked away walking his motorbike.  The entire family was inside the car and were afraid to get out, since there were many motorbike kids all around.  The damage to the car was about 2,600 RM (ringgit) and will take 3 weeks to repair.  Right after that, his oldest daughter had a baby and had to deliver the baby C-Section.  The father had to help pay for this also.  He called us and told us that his family of 7 had no food, but will be able to get back on their feet in about 3 months.  There is no such thing as a "bishop's storehouse" out here and people have to just do the best they can.  I asked him if I could give him a blessing and he knelt down on the hard tile floor, kneeling straight up for the entire time.  Our branch president was robbed and attacked a month ago, and many are scared to go out by themselves.  Satan is trying hard to stop the work here, by attacking his choice leaders and strong members.  When this much opposition happens, it is usually a precursor to something wonderful that is coming, that will greatly bless our two little branches.  I mentioned, in the blessing, that Joseph Smith went through much opposition and the Lord told him that all this would give him experience and be for his good.  We love these wonderful people of Malaysia and pray each day for their safety and happiness.  We will wait to see how greatly the Lord blesses these sweet, humble people.  We also pray that we will see the day when wards and stakes and a beautiful temple will be here in Malaysia.  So much strength and love for the Lord, in these tiny branches.  It doesn't matter where we live, we still partake of the same sacrament and sing the same beautiful songs and teach the same wonderful principles of the Gospel of Jesus Christ.  The Lord's church and kingdom, even in its infant stages, is still the same and growing.  What an honor to be a part of it.

 Last week was Linda's birthday.  The 2 branches came together and celebrated with lots of food and cake.  One Monday, May 27th, I was all excited to give her the present I was planning to get.  The elders kept her busy while I went into 4 different stores to find her a new "oven".  She has this small thing that can only bake 6 cookies, if you're lucky.  It burns most things we try.  After 4 stores, no luck.  Everyone had sold out of the larger one I wanted.  This picture is the sweet Muslim sales lady that helped us find the oven I wanted, one week later.

 Here is Elder Steven, sitting inside the oven box.  It was large enough for him to crawl into the box and fit quite nicely.  We had a bit of a hassle at the store.  The oven was on sale a few days earlier and they forgot to take down the promotion sign.  We had to pay an additional 120 ringgit, after talking with the store manager and calling the company.  We still lost and had to pay the higher price.  I really didn't care, as long as I could get the bigger oven for Linda's birthday.

 Here are the two ovens, side by side.  The new oven is a convection oven, which circulates air around while it cooks.  That will prevent burning.  Linda made a "fruit cocktail" cake with brown sugar on top.  It turned out perfectly.  It was soft and delicious and all gone in a few minutes.  Even though we have to leave this oven behind when we go home, some other senior couple will enjoy a larger oven in this apartment.

 The elders and mother and I have tried very hard meeting up with this sweet young Chinese sister, just baptized a few months ago.  Her name is Zhen Li and she speaks very little English and none of us speak Chinese.  So the new plan for our mission and for our area in Johor Bahru is to always take a member along when teaching and connect the new convert or the less active to an active member who will befriend them and love them.  It has really worked.  This picture is Brother Ng, who just got back from the Hong Kong Temple with his wife and son in April.  He speaks bahasa and Chinese very well.  We didn't understand anything he said to Zhen Li, but the Spirit was so strong and she was so grateful for the lesson we gave her.

We are going around to everyone and telling active members and all our inactive people about "CPR".  This stands for church attendance, prayer, and reading your scriptures.  If they have those 3 basic things in their homes and in their lives, they will have daily spiritual experiences and stay converted in the gospel.  Many of our members stay close to the church as long as the elders or the senior couple visits them.  When the elders get transferred or the senior couple goes home, the new converts become less active and stop coming to church.  This new approach is really working and we are seeing wonderful results by always bringing a member with us to bear testimony and attach themselves to both active and less active members.

This past week, we went to Singapore and had our first Senior Conference and Zone Conference.  It was wonderful.  The only thing we forgot was to take pictures.  We left on Tuesday night, right after we taught our 3 Chinese kids.  We just got a new little five year old boy to teach, by the name of Yan Hao.  It is very smart and very cute.  His mother comes with him each time.  We waited for about 45 minutes for the taxi and then left for Singapore.  We have to go through immigration and customs for both countries, first leaving Malaysia and then entering Singapore.  When we arrived, we got into our hotel room at the V Lavendar Hotel.  Very beautiful and very tiny.
We were essentially in a very small "hamster" cage.  There was a queen size bed with a TV on the wall, a small bathroom and a very tight shower.  That was it.  We didn't have the room, next to the bed, to kneel for prayer, it was that tight to walk around the bed.  But, we didn't have to pay for it and the best part was it had "hot water".  That's a real treat, since no homes in Malaysia have hot water.
We then got on the MRT, the underground Singapore subway system.  What a thrill!  You scan your card and get on this very, very long train and you are whisked away and seconds later, you're at the next stop.  There were so many people on the trains, in the morning, that we had to wait for 7 trains to pass by us before we got up the nerve to become extremely aggressive and push our way onto the train before the doors close behind you.  We were like sardines in a can.  We had 7 stops and then got off and walked to the Stake Center.  The Senior Conference was a spiritual high, with Elder Woo (of the 70) and his wife speaking, then Pres. and Sister Mains and lots of other panel discussions and break out sessions and testimonies.  We then went out to eat with other senior missionary couples and shared a wonderful evening together.  The next day was Zone Conference, and that was not as exciting because much of it is geared to the young elders and sisters.  The sessions were about the correct language of prayer (thee, thou, thine, etc.) and how to use the Restoration pamphlet, etc.  It went from 10 AM to 9 PM, with a huge lunch of pizza and brownies.  There wasn't a piece of anything left after the elders and sisters got to it.  We spent 3 nights and 4 days in Singapore and loved it.  We didn't venture very far, being new to all this and was very happy to run into some senior couples who helped us along the way.  We then had another wait of an hour or so, standing in the hot, humid outside, waiting for the taxi again.  This time, leaving Singapore went just fine, but trying to get back into Malaysia came with some difficulty.  We were detained for a while and finally got back home.  I never can sleep, when it's not your own bed, and I enjoyed a wonderful nights sleep in our bed in Malaysia.  Now we kind of know how to go back and forth and what is expected for both conferences.  We must do this every 3 months, which is the law in Malaysia.  You must leave the country and get a new passport stamp or "chop" in order to return.  I hope September's conference is just as wonderful and will begin praying that the Lord will soften hearts for coming and going through immigration and customs.  It is so great to be here in Malaysia with such wonderful people.

 Today, June 1, is Gawai Day in Malaysia.  It is their Thanksgiving, a day of harvest and celebration.  Through this past week, we were invited to 5 different homes for a Gawai feast. 
This first home is Bro. Tony and Sis. Nancy, just baptized 2 weeks ago.  We ate so much and then danced the traditional Gawai dance.  It was like a line dance and I did well. Sorry, no pictures of mother and I dancing, but I was good!

 The second Gawai party was at Pres. John's home.  He is pictured here in the green shirt.  He is the Masai Branch President.  Again, we ate and ate.  The first was at 11 am and this one was at 1 pm.  Similar foods are given: rice, of course, noodles, curry, chicken and pork, pototoes and lots of delicious desserts that are hand made.  At this home, they had cockels.  They are like a clam in an open small shell.  You scoop the shells on your plate and suck out the slimy little bugger.

 Home three on Gawai day was at Pres. Chen and Sis. Barbara.  Pres. Chen is the E.Q. Pres in the Masai Branch.  After being extremely full, Pres. Chen takes a plate and prepares your food for you, by piling on lots of everything.  I tried some tapioca leaves this time.  They looked like cooked spinach and tasted like salted grass. Gross!  I did like the "ikan" (fish) in a sweet and sour sauce with fruits and vegetables.  Very good stuff.  Sis. Barbara works with Linda in the District R.S. Presidency. 

 The 4 Gawai party was at 7 pm at Bro. Tinggom's home.  You can see my gray pant knee in the forefront of the picture.  We hid in the corner, so they couldn't see that we took very little.  After we were so full of food throughout the day, we opened the container of desserts that Sis. Rose made.  They melted in your mouth and I took about 3 helpings.  We are now getting sicker and sicker and only have one more home to visit.

Finally, we ended our day at 8:30 pm at Sis. Joanna.  She is reaching for the bowl.  Elder Chan is sitting by Sister Norma, one of the pioneer saints from the early 1990's that started the church here in Malaysia.  We had delicious Milo in beautiful tea cups.  We laughed all day and ate all day.  They had to roll me to my car.
They tell us that on Christmas day, the senior couple gets invited to over 10 homes and you must eat at each home or you offend them.  I feel "sakit" (sick) already.  It's pronounced "socket"